


Shiro sin julbock känner, de äro gode vänner

by SuperiorDimwit



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Charles Dickens - Freeform, Christmas Special, In which Shiro is grumpy and Mephisto is brimming with Christmas spirit, Inspired by A Christmas Carol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperiorDimwit/pseuds/SuperiorDimwit
Summary: Everybody knows Charles Dickens' classic Christmas tale. And if not, Mephisto will enact it for you.





	1. Gångna jular

Fujimoto-sensei was a demon. Now, while this was something every Page and Esquire knew, none would raise any complaints, since they were equally well aware that the Academy's chairman was a demon, too, and that speaking ill of one demon to another might not be an advisable thing to do.

One could ponder long hours what singular and mysterious events would lead two demons to obtain ranks in an Order whose purpose it was to exterminate such creatures; for the hours were long, and only grew longer, in the teeth-rattling cold of the December day – two days before Christmas, would you believe they were still charged with school assignments? – that fate had picked for their mission. The wind carried ocean breath between huddling harbour storages and groaning fishing boats, turned searing sharp by the unfriendly season so that it cut through wool and cotton and crept up trouser legs to chill any outdoors limb to the very bone. The sky, as if in an act of misdirected pity, had ventured to compensate for nature's harshness by granting a beautiful snowfall: and nature, not feeling inclined whatsoever to lessen her children's gloom, had promptly turned the feathery flakes into fine granules of ice that sanded the bare skin in the gaps between hoods and scarves.

It was a morose squad of students that were herded out to exterminate the demons that upset the fishermen's nets, and an even more morose squad that marched home from the harbour, carrying with them runny noses, numb fingers, and sopping wet clothes for souvenirs. The complaints were muffled; not only by scarves but by the presence of Fujimoto-sensei, who seemed to somehow nullify the biting cold and the pelting hail with his own unwavering cool.

As ditches of still water by country roads are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and their larvae, Fujimoto-sensei was the kind of teacher around which stories sprung up and prospered. Harsh as the winter wind and skilled beyond his peers and colleagues, many claimed that Fujimoto was, indeed, of demon blood. He did not have the ears, nor did he sport the fangs and tail that were the telltale traits of the demon race… but, to be fair, how else explain that he seemed to endure any condition without ever being bothered, neither by weather nor exertion? What else could account for that striking pale hair; allegedly a hue that hadn't changed since he himself was a student at the Academy? And indeed, how else explain that peculiar rumour – it held far more truth than mere rumour, but streaked along walls in soft whispers in the manner of suchlike – that Fujimoto-sensei was an old and dear friend of Sir Pheles, the demon knight of the Order of the True Cross? Humans did not befriend demons that way. And humans most certainly could not host Satan himself in their flesh.

* * *

Many a face has graced the vacant countenance of Solitude. For some it is a jailer in a prison without bars, and to some it is a trusty sentinel against phantom fears that skulk about the surrounding world; some choose it readily, and some are chosen by it without a say.

Days shortened rapidly, as days do when driven on by the anticipation of millions of children, in eager hurry for the food and gifts and merriment that came with that Western custom known as Christmas; a celebration of gratitude, of giving, of gathering near and dear ones together and rejoicing.

Christmas is, without a doubt, the time of year when Solitude dons its cruellest sneer.

* * *

It had been many a year since Fujimoto Shiro celebrated Christmas. Celebrating the Catholic Christmas hardly counted: the church he held vicariate in was small, the community that congregated there smaller still. And though he spoke of God and Love on Midnight Mass each year, neither ever touched his heart as far as he could tell. When Mass was over and cleaning duties ensued, the sanctum once again lapsed into silent reverence of God; this transcendent, distant deity, so lonely in His perfection that He created Man; an imperfect race whose numerous members now huddled close together in their homes, seeking completion in each other and in the mighty Father that had brought them life. Even God – or, perhaps, especially God – must know what it is like to be alone.

It would be a lie, and lies should not be told so close to Christmas, to say that Father Fujimoto was _entirely_ alone in the winter dark. There came an invitation, each year on the 13th, in his mail compartment at school, for a Christmas celebration that had nothing even remotely in common with the Catholic event. Mind you, he had never gone to confirm that; but among the virtues of old friends is knowing each other's tastes, and no Virtue had ever held a place in Sir Pheles'. There would be wine spiced and mulled and pouring down in fountains; nougats and pralines and sugar-powdered fruit tarts stacked in piles; and women. And men. And ring dancing in demon fashion. The rest, as they say, is best left for imagination.

Indeed, days in that time of year were short but felt ages long; seemed to cling to his boots and plead him to stay a minute more in the cold and damp, when he forced his soaked garments off in the hall. His apartment was such that one would, upon first scrutiny, deem Fujimoto a man of little to no imagination, whose Aspbergian mind held an unnerving fascination with firearms. Alternatively, one might have taken it for the hideout of a bank robber who had just gathered the necessary equipment for carrying out his plans.

The truth, as so often is, veiled itself behind entirely different explanations. It was not a place for living, but rather one for storing; for weaponry, for clothes, for food, and for the fatigued man who, still chilled from the day's excursions with the Esquires, collapsed headlong onto the futon.

To read a man from his abode is a treacherous business, which the mind will nonetheless attempt upon observation. The kitchen was small and neatly kept; a feat for a lone bachelor, some would say, but that would be an erroneous assumption. Fujimoto owned precisely two bowls, one plate, one pair of chopsticks, one spoon, two glasses and two cups, and the basic pots and utensils needed to cook a meal. These hid in plain, green cupboards, as though not wanting to intrude upon their master's solitude; no feat to brag of, as said cupboards gaped near as empty as they had been when he moved in, for he had never had the need to expand his collection to feed a guest.

The single room, kitchen not counted, housed a futon and a low table, which, no matter how they were moved about, always seemed unsure if they were in the right place, tiptoeing where they stood and glancing nervously about for company to ease their stage fright. Sole decoration in the room was the pot plant that sat on the small table: still alive, surprisingly. Not even this could be attributed to the owner's care to make his home a home. He did not remember the plant often, and he was seldom in the apartment long enough to care for it, but it was a plant of Gehennan origin – a sturdy species – and it would take an active effort to actually kill it.

It was an apartment that did its best to look neat and tidy, but somehow seemed to lack the enthusiasm for it – because, in the end… who was ever there to be bothered if there were a little dust left in the corners? Certainly not the apartment's owner, who had already fallen into deep slumber on the spread futon. That, for one, was a skill that he had cultivated; to weave around himself, swifter than the swallow flies, the blanket of sleep whenever he so wished. Between his work as teacher, as exorcist, as vicar, there was little time for such luxury as sleep, and opportunities for it must be seized post haste. Mind, not the exhausted slumber a labourer might indulge in after a long day's body work, but the light sleep of a soldier who expects the enemy at any minute. The hums and groans of the city outside did not stir him, no; but even the slightest discordance with this familiar orchestra – a door creaking, the soft padding of feet on tatami mats, the grumbling protest of drawers searched – would rouse him instantly.

It was all the more startling to him, then, that he did not wake until the intruder quite literally shook his shoulder.

"Son of a…!" He sprang up, like Jack-in-the-box, and would have let his combat training loose on the stranger instantly had not his senses informed him that this was no stranger. "Damn goat – what do you want? It's barely past midnight!"

"Indeed, indeed~ Prime witching hour, no? As for goat; such an unflattering moniker. You may call me the Ghost of Christmas Past", said the gangly creature, whose pristine tailcoat billowed in unfelt wind as he bowed most flourishingly.

"I'm too tired to play games, Mephisto", groaned Fujimoto as he rubbed sleep grit from his eyes. "Just say what you want. Some emergency mission no one else was dumb enough to take?"

At this, the Branch Director's countenance grew most discontent.

"Surely you know your Dickens, don't you? I am the Ghost of Christmas Past: why do you think I'm here?"

"I think you're here to piss me off. You're no ghost, this is no fairytale, and I have Pages to teach tomorrow morning", he said testily, pondering if the landlady would be terribly upset if the house peace was disturbed by gunfire. …yes, most likely, she would.

It would be a lie, and a quite preposterous such, to claim any unifying traits in demons save the superficial. He taught his students that they were creatures of evil, because such was the creed of the Church that was supreme executive of the Order; but he knew full well, in silence, that demons were no different from humans in their many varying personalities.

And had his students been there in that moment, and posed to him the question of which demons – the ones commanded by the Devil or the ones in human service – were the most burdensome to men, he would have been hard pressed to answer.

"Whether true or knit from fancy, a good story warms the human heart in winter days. Humour me on this one, Shiro, and I promise it will be worth your while: for I have come to rekindle your long-lost Christmas spirit~!"

Why, and there it was, his answer: as chiming bright as the fanged smile his employer flashed him.

"A demon's gonna lecture a priest about Christmas spirit? Good one. Now bugger off and let me sleep."

Not so, if Sir Pheles would have his way. A bony finger, smartly clad in lavender, wagged back and forth before the teacher's face; one could imagine the demon's tail would have wagged with glee in similar fashion, had he not been gentleman enough to keep it hid from view.

"'tis a most unfortunate ailment, the short memory you humans suffer from – leaves history gruesomely dismembered. Those who recall the Christmases of Past", he pointed out, and made it clear beyond doubt that he counted amongst those, "can testify there never was a feast more Pagan. Winter Solstice was celebrated in honour of Roman Saturn when Christians assimilated it for their Christ; was celebrated with worship of evergreens in the animistic cults of Germania, when missionaries gave that ages-old tradition Christian connotations to more easily convert its practitioners; and though the giving of gifts is the more pleasant aspect of it all, that, too, is a Roman innovation. In all", grinned Sir Pheles, proud as ever of his extensive knowledge and skill at twisting it, "who better suited to speak of Christmas spirit than a demon?"

"You know I don't celebrate that kind of Christmas."

"You haven't celebrated any kind of Christmas for the past ten years, Shiro. And, before you speak: church service is a duty, not a celebration. You _did_ celebrate, however, although your memory is as pitifully short as all humans'."

There was a crisp snap of the demon's fingers, but the familiar sensation of being yanked roughly through corporeal space did not come with it; neither did the heavy, vibrating feeling of time turning backwards. And yet, it had done precisely that.

Many times, upon discussions of what the effects of time travelling might be, the talk concerns entirely technical aspects of by mistake altering history. That is a quite pompous assumption, is it not? That Time in its endless, vast expanse would see its journey altered by a mere human throwing pebbles in its stream, or digging with her grubby hands a trench into the riverbank and say she will make it take another course? The human mind is such devised, you see, that it perceives itself the centre of the universe. It cannot help but think it so, since so it was constructed, and thinks of everything else as satellite objects; it sees the human as the one to invent, impact, and influence her passive surroundings. She rarely considers the reversed case. She rarely considers the shearing forces of old memories, which shape like running water the canyons and crannies of the human mind – nor does she consider herself a tree, growing steadily into new spheres of consciousness yet ever drawing upon the nourishments of the ground to which she is rooted.

She rarely considers, on the subject of time travel, the impact of being plunged into those memories upstream, and carried through forgotten nooks that shaped her path in life.

He did not need to cast his eyes about the apartment to know exactly where the photographs were hung to hide the cracks in plaster walls, or which corner of the band that lined the tatami mats was ruffled by restless little feet. He knew this apartment, knew it well, and every detail of it seemed to sting his eyes even when he weren't looking. Years had furnished it with a homely atmosphere, embedded with careful fingers the sense of family into mats and decorations – the way one hangs up large photographs to cover holes and imperfections in the walls.

Fujimoto registered movement, as the soldier he was, and had turned his head before his mind could advise him not to. Three silhouettes bathed in golden light from a lush evergreen, mingling shallow talk with the baubles and garlands they hung on uncooperative branches. He remembered that tree, remembered it so well: his mother had wanted to dress it with the glaringly ugly little Santa Claus he had made during crafts class in school.

"You can't turn back time for the dead…" were the first words that left Fujimoto's lips: a whisper meant to remind himself of a well-known fact that he was nonetheless forced to doubt.

For his father's shoulders were that broad and hunched, and the shirt that clad them was no doubt his; and his mother had that mole on her neck, and wore precisely that ornament to hold up her hair on festive occasions. It was they, and all his senses testified to that – and yet, it could not be.

"Most true, old friend", Sir Pheles spoke softly, as if not to alert the spectres that played house before their eyes. "The dead live in your mind; in time recorded by memory, rewound and replayed like a cinema of dreams."

Blessed and cursed be human memory, for tantalizing us with mirages of what is lost! For taunting longing in letting us revisit and relive what we will never have again!

But even worse, it is, to be brought back into the landscapes of memory by magic, the way Sir Pheles had arranged. When in the private darkrooms of the human consciousness, it is at one's own discretion to edit and erase in memories; when brought into the raw negative, no sharp edge is smoothed away, and things are depicted through the naked lens of truth.

And Fujimoto stood, still as though he and not the people by the tree were the ghost, and watched himself seethe and boil, like a teakettle not allowed to vent its steam.

Many are the parents whom have made the mistake of thinking that children are inattentive, or dumb, or prone to forgetting; it is they, rather, who have forgotten what it is like to be a child. Children keep a close eye on their guardians, always, and search for any sign that something done has brought them joy or caused them grief. All children seek to put smiles on their parents' faces, to bathe in the warmth they radiate and shower in their laughter.

Like the pictures hung to cover the cracks in the plaster, so were those smiles hung on their lips, painted there by wishes for a merrier Christmas than what their broken family could make; and nine-year-old Fujimoto was no more fooled by them than the adult ghost that watched it all replayed.

Not once did one ring-bearing hand reach out to the other, to offer decorations or ask for them. Not one glance was exchanged between wife and husband. Not one word passed directly between them, but skulked a shameful detour via the child they played their cordial theatre for. Not a single crack marred it, the artificial picture of their family Christmas. The strait-coat of perfection would not allow for that.

"Are you done yet?" muttered the adult Fujimoto flatly, and felt his need for a real, undreamt cigarette increase by the second. "'cause I'm not feeling my Christmas spirit returning anytime soon."

"Hmm perhaps not the best memory to choose…"

"Do _not_ jump to another", he snapped. "We're done for tonight."

It can, without debate, be said that the same thing happens to old friends as happens to old couples: a familiarity develops, so strong and so profound, that one could confuse it for telepathy. Be it so that Fujimoto's statement was terse: to Sir Pheles, it held all the explanation, depth and purpose needed to make clear that pushing the matter further would only garner more resistance from this very old, very strong-willed friend of his.

"It always slips my mind that you humans need so much sleep", came his smooth reply; not intrusive, not compliant, but stating the neutral obvious. "Very well, then. Gute Nacht, Shiro."

* * *

He woke, as they say, with a start; and glared, as if suspecting the Branch Director to have hidden in the dusty shadows, about the room where his futon was rolled out. But the orchestra of the night played unperturbed, and the shadows slept peacefully to its lullaby. There was not a soul to be seen – whatever is to be made of that expression, where demons are concerned. He grumbled, then, eyes stung by the verdict of the alarm clock – near two in the morning, good lord – and pinched the base of his nose to calm himself for a new attempt at rest. What now? Was that moisture at his fingertips?

"Stupid old goat…" grumbled he anew, and wiped in ire at his cheeks and weary eyes. "Stupid dream…"


	2. Nuvarande jul

He did not dwell long on the night's events they day that followed, nor did he think of it when he planned tomorrow's classes in the company of a whiskey glass; not even when he brushed his teeth for the night, and made a half-hearted attempt at cropping the stubble he had neglected since he woke, did he ponder Sir Pheles' plans.

Fujimoto had his reasons. It was no use pondering those plans, experience had taught him, for they were likely to come to fruition regardless what he thought or did about them. This, mind, did in no way mean that he would not put up resistance. The passive variety was preferable, however, for actively opposing Sir Pheles was the equivalent of actively trying to bring an aikido master down on his back; every force exerted towards that end would be turned against him, and brutally so.

And so, when he was once again roused from his futon in the witching hours, he kept his mind cool and his wits about him.

"Wouldn't it be fitting if the Ghost of Christmas Past stayed in the past?" entreated Fujimoto when his glasses had mounted their familiar saddle at the bridge of his nose.

"What are you talking about? I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present."

And people wondered why his hair was white, when he had passed the mark of thirty not three years ago?

"…you really do plan on doing this by the book, don't you?"

"And successfully revive your Christmas spirit in doing so~!"

A marvellous thing it is, the enthusiasm of a demon – pray that all of them would try to help mankind, and in no time he would have converts flocking at the doorstep of the monastery to receive salvation.

"Any Christmas gift I can bribe you with that would make you give up?"

"Why, of course~"

Whether it was a necessary part of summoning for the air to combust, or if it was yet another expression for the Branch Director's idiosyncratic tastes, none was the wiser. But combust it did, in one billowing cloud of pink; and, as the smoke dissipated, Fujimoto could trace the sensation of constraining to winding wreaths of paper, wrapped in all directions around his body. Upon closer inspection, said paper appeared to be a wish list.

"…whaddaya mean 'scale 1:1 MS Gundam suit: fully operational'? Flying castle, cat bus, a live _panda_ …?" Needless to point out, it was a fool's errand to acquire even one of the objects on that list; as was Fujimoto's attempt at bribing himself out of his predicament. "You sure you haven't accidentally added a zero here? You can't possibly want _one hundred_ kilograms of candy…?" If all it took was ten kilograms, maybe he still had a chance of escape...

"Ah, my bad." With little time wasted, Sir Pheles scribbled the correct amount onto the sprawling list with deep red ink.

"One _tonne_?! Fine, fine: I give up. Poof we go."

One would have to assume that, like the night before, it was only their minds that ventured out into the world, swept like flurries of snow past unsuspecting humans in the streets: one would have to assume it, since the dining couple showed no sign of having noticed their unexpected visitors.

The two candles on the table shed more shadows than light over the room, but that mattered little, since it was not one that looked familiar to Fujimoto. A fine home it was, however: a home that smelt of warmth and hospitality, without the need to cover any cracked walls. There were abundant flowers at the windows, crowded like curious children for a chance to peek at the snow outside. There were photographs and paintings, and matching cushions seated round the tea table by the Christmas tree; a giant thing, sporting all the colours of the rainbow and a few additions for good measure. It was a warm abode, dressed in finest Christmas shroud and puffing itself up like a bullfinch male courting a potential spouse; an analogy not entirely out of place, as it were, for the two seated opposite each other at the dining table wore the glowing, furtive smiles so often seen in couples newly formed.

"I know these guys", said Fujimoto suddenly. "That's Tsubaki-kohai, the guy who always shows off with his motorbike. And Sandoval-kohai – you know, that Filipino exorcist with a doll's face and a tongue like an akaname. I had no idea they were dating…"

"You never were good at picking up on the subtle language of attraction, Shiro", snickered the other ghostly spectator.

"You call that subtle?" snorted Fujimoto in response; it did not come quite as naturally to him to spy on people's private lives as did it to Sir Pheles. This, especially, concerned moments as private as these.

It is unfortunate, and yet an undeniable fact, that the demands of society foster a need for several persona to suit its many facets. Each situation – be it work, social gatherings, family and conferences – imposes its requirements on the individual, to which every man and woman must respond or be rejected.

Fujimoto himself may have held an aversion to such constructs – he did to many things, after all – but the wisdom of our ancestors has taught us that there is no rule without exception; and even Fujimoto was silently grateful that the persona Tsubaki employed at work was not the same as that he wore in private. Why, the man was cooing like a songbird, and fed Sandoval sponge cake and whipped cream accompanied by pet names that made it a reasonable inquiry if he truly had all sheep in the proverbial paddock.

"You humans are most fascinating creatures."

"Don't lump me together with those two."

Embarrassment can wear nerves thin and patience thinner yet, and in this Fujimoto was no exception. Sir Pheles was fain to play him a prank, it seemed, as demons like so much – but barely had he opened his mouth to demand their immediate return before he heard his name be entered in the dialogue.

"I wish I didn't have to work with Fujimoto-senpai." It was Sandoval, fair and frowning, who uttered his name with an agitated sigh. "He embarrassed me again today, in front of all the others. I mean, I had that harpy-bitch in my sights! Just because he's quicker doesn't mean he needs to steal my kill like I'm some goddamn damsel in distress!"

"I should'a let it tear off your head, you mean?" retorted Fujimoto dryly – and would have done so still, had she been able to hear him. "She's too passive for a Dragoon. Aria or Doctor would fit her better."

"But you are my dainty little damsel, Kitten", chirped Tsubaki, in such a tone and such a way that Fujimoto felt the shaggy hairs on his chin curl towards their roots.

"Kitten? Is he kidding?"

"Don't mind Fujimoto-senpai – he's not a people person, that's all", continued the P.E. teacher cheerfully. "It takes a while to get used to working with him."

"Has he really always been like that?" she asked then, brow scrunching up like a raisin drying in the sun. "That annoyingly perfect?"

"Perfect? No no, my kitten dear~ I hear he was quite the troublemaker in his youth."

"Troublemaker, that one? Now you've got me curious. What did he do, then?"

"Eeh, I didn't meet him until he returned from his time as exchange student, and by then he was much like he is now", Tsubaki said, and scratched a rather prominent gush of dandruff out of his sideburn with a sheepish look. "There were stories, though. One I heard said he kept a succubus sealed in a jar under his bed, but that one night she escaped when he was going to, er, put her back. She stole his clothes and ran off, and he ran after her wearing nothing but his bed sheet, and attempted to seal her in the corridor's vending machine."

"Okay, I hadn't heard that version of it..." groaned Fujimoto as he massaged the bridge of his nose firmly.

"Oh, you haven't heard half the versions of that, Shiro-pon~" snickered his traveling companion happily.

Sandoval, meanwhile, was laughing as well; and Fujimoto would have to confess that he could understand what brought about Tsubaki's blubbering besottedness, for she had indeed the loveliest laughter he had ever heard. It touched something in him that had long been dormant - not the spirit of Christmas celebration, mind, but something as fundamental as breathing and eating, of which he had long been starved. Such a simple thing as laughter, and that special smile two people sometimes share...

"Kihihihi I think I like that story! Aah, you're so funny, my lovely little Rubber Duck~!"

"Oh god, there's another nickname I never wanna know the explanation for. Ew…" Human imagination is a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing indeed. "Isn't it about time they laid off that cutesy-poo teenage crap and got serious?"

"Fufufu listen to the unsold Christmas Cake~"

"Tch. And this is supposed to light my Christmas spirit how, exactly?"

This had Sir Pheles looking at him – goodness, had you seen it! Complete and utter failure to understand was etched onto his face, as if in centuries and centuries of memory he could not find a single clue to why his friend would speak this way!

"You mean to say you don't think it looks cosy and sweet? That you wouldn't want your Christmases to be like this? Filled with heartfelt affection and-"

"I _can't_ , so shut your pie hole. I'm a priest, remember? I don't get to have a family."

Now, this set a most displeased look upon Sir Pheles' features: and there was, indeed, a most displeased tone in his voice when he replied, as demons do, with the barbed sting that only truth can muster:

"Some priest, who won't even believe in what he preaches! Lay off the cassock, Shiro, and remember you are a man among men: life is short for your kind, too precious and too short to waste on faith you'll never have."

"You make it sound like I had a choice", came his reply; quick and curt, with flavour that of bitter almond, and the ring of rusted steel.

It was a thing of the past now, but to say that the past is past as if it does not matter is a lie of gravest kind. It is the past that shapes the present, and the canyons of the mind remain where memory has carved them: monuments, of all things done and all things regretted, that cast shadows that extend forever on.

Many attempts had been made towards determining how and why Fujimoto Shiro was capable of withstanding the Devil's presence, yet nowhere in his mind or flesh had the Order's doctors found any lead to solve the mystery. Perhaps it was an anomaly too small for their instruments to measure? Perhaps it was one they could not hope to detect at all, with human methods? Whatever the answer may be, Fujimoto Shiro was a thorn in the Vatican's side that, like a sheep come down with an unknown illness, made peace of mind impossible for the shepherds. It would not spread in the flock, that much Sir Pheles could assure them; but were it so – pray not – that the illness was inherent in the nucleic acids of this one divergent sheep, then it must be quarantined with different methods. Between priesthood and prohibition, the former type of celibacy had been deemed the more publically palatable by the Order's executives.

"Even if I did ditch priesthood, what woman would marry a guy who won't give her kids? And no, I'm _not_ hooking up with some barren old widow", clarified Fujimoto upon shooting his old friend a glare the kin of gorgons'. "I'm not that desperate, ya know."

Not that desperate, he would claim: but demons know the desires of the human heart, through truth and lie and self-deception, and it was quite clear to Sir Pheles what his friend was missing.

"My my, you're a hard one to please, Father. I guess some beggars will still be choosers." They were seasoned combatants in this type of joust, and knew each other's feints and blocks as well as the signs of surrender; and when Sir Pheles heaved this sort of animated sigh, the argument would continue no further. "Gute Nacht, then, Shiro."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Akaname** is a ghost that licks up filth in bathrooms. So don't skip out on cleaning that toilet, or it'll get haunted.
> 
>  **Unsold Christmas Cake** is, or was, a mean jibe against unmarried women. Vendors try to have their cakes sold out by Christmas Eve, and any cake left after that is considered old and substandard: same went for women who hadn't managed to find a husband by 25. Nowadays average marrying age is quite a bit above 25: but around this time, when Shiro is in his early thirties, this expression was probably still in use.


	3. Kommande jular

So came the twenty-third, whipped at lightning speed by winter winds and children's wishes. The air was crisp and crackling with expectation, and the deepening dusk saw the Academy outshine the city with its outrageous decorations, like one gigantic Christmas tree of stone and man-made stars. Snow came, as snow does, in amounts that made children shriek with joy and adults sigh at the prospect of many a sweaty hour with the shovel. Even then, the city did its best to welcome the season, with the smell of burnt almonds in every street corner, bells jingling in every SevenEleven speaker, and anticipation adorning each face with a particularly hearty glow. It was the twenty-third indeed, and in the playful gusts that swept the streets of True Cross Town could be heard Christmas knocking expectantly on every door.

There was, of course, one door on which Christmas did not bother knocking, or even care for such mundane things as opening it.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Had the frost that lined the windowsill been heated, and a not-so-tiny bit of sour in taste, it would have been truly an appropriate metaphor for the associations Sir Pheles' tone invoked. He stood, garbed in white and hands on hips, inside a door he had not disturbed, and trained a most affronted glare at the jagged symbols drawn in chalk.

"You tell me. I don't know Sumerian: I only know how to draw wards."

"It's a nuisance." The warding symbols – anti-demon knowledge six thousand years of age – were rendered useless with but a flick of Sir Pheles' wrist; they glowed and hissed and broke, like light bulbs giving out. "And a quite far cry from keeping me out, at that. Really, a demon of my standing-"

"Yeah yeah, royalty and demigod: got that. Words didn't get through to you, so I opted for action this time around." It was well past midnight, and Christmas Eve was due; yet Fujimoto kept his cup of coffee faithful company at the table, and made no move to rise when Sir Pheles sauntered to him. "Quit this Christmas spirit thing, will you?" he entreated, weary both from vigil and from work. "It didn't work the first two times, and a trip to my neglected grave in the future isn't gonna make me feel any more spirited. Yeah, I read the book." And since it was an old, persistent habit of Sir Pheles' to hold him for an uneducated ape, Fujimoto displayed the thumbed old copy of _A Christmas Carol_ he had borrowed from the Academy library the day before. "Just leave it, Mephisto. I'm a lost cause. Go have yourself your annual Pagan Christmas orgy."

Now, Sir Pheles was, as a proper demon and proper royalty, used to obtaining what he desired: by gift, by scheme, by theft, or by purchase, anything he wanted soon became his. To arouse a feeling of seasonal joy in a human might not be part of his profession per se, but that certainly did not change the fact that it was something that he _wanted_ ; and thus, it was something he had set mind on achieving by any means.

"I thought you'd learnt that lesson long ago, Shiro", smiled the Branch Director: "It's a grave mistake to underestimate me. Eins-"

"Don't you do it."

"Zwei-"

"I'm serious, Mephis-"

"Drei!"

The wind tossed snow at the intruders, but since they were not bothered by it Fujimoto assumed again that their minds had left without their physical containers. A landscape melted out of the apartment walls; a city, vast and yawning as it stretched itself towards the sky, reaching up to pull the heavy, glistening blanket down and go to sleep. It struck him as familiar – such an odd sensation to be ambushed by –, this patch of open sky with only the tramway tracks soaring above on concrete legs. Buildings here were smaller, made not for offices and agencies but people who sought a place to live where night was night, and nights were peaceful. One could still see the giant spectacle of True Cross Academy in the distance, but the humble houses where they stood had already closed their shutter eyes to sleep.

…and it occurred to him that yes, it was familiar: it was the monastery where his community held Mass.

He would serve there so long, then, that he was buried on its turf? A most disturbing feeling, and he knew just who was to blame.

"Holy shi-!"

Who was to blame? Certainly not the towering creature at his side, veiled from view in its tattered shadow cloak; a spectre of the underworld with leave to reap the crops above it. It was beyond the reach of light, a hole cut in the winter darkness like a window into the wastelands of Sheol and its rotting-

-laughter.

"That was _not_ funny, you jerk!" snarled Fujimoto upon hearing the damnably familiar giggles from the darkness.

"Tsk tsk, no jerk, Shiro: the Ghost of Christmases to Come~"

"Dickens is turning in his grave", he muttered, and watched as the image of the Reaper was dismantled and shed into thin air. "Bloody shape shifters…"

Not here, either, did Sir Pheles deign to use a door, it seemed; like an elf he trod the snow, left no mar or mark in winter's powder, as he manoeuvred briskly 'round the snowman to peer in through the windows on the garden side.

Back there were the living quarters, reminisced Fujimoto, and strode traceless 'cross the snow to see whatever lunacy he would have to prevent his friend from instigating. He had learnt, indeed, not to underestimate the old trickster, who seemed to never age a day past boisterous thirteen, although some scriptures – best not let Sir Pheles see them – claimed he could be thousand-fold that age.

No need to shutter the windows on this side, the monks reasoned, as the only voyeurs they risked attracting were the winter birds that came to feast on leftover bread. The monastery slept, softly like a murmured litany, save for one window that flickered with the golden light of fire. Sir Pheles stopped before it – impaled, one would think, by the light that seemed to pass right through his ghostly form – and peered inside. His eyes brightened, then, and he nodded to himself like one who counts his monthly salary and finds it correct down to the last yen.

"Still thinking I'm about to show you your headstone, Shiro?" he smiled, and beckoned his friend closer.

In the eyes of his students – and some peers, though few of them would say it – Fujimoto was a demon. He was composed, and harsh, and ruthless, and no exorcist had ever seen him balk or flinch. This only serves to show that humans trust their eyes far more often than they should. Fujimoto balked at the Branch Director's beckoning. Sir Pheles had seen him flinch, had seen him freeze in horror and snarl in fury – more often than not been the cause of it, darn goat –, and he knew tricks for throwing the most unflappable man off balance.

Composure was the sole shield he had against the Devil seizing him. That composure could never falter, never fail, never let his unguarded heart grant access to his flesh. Thus, it never did.

…but no rule without exception.

The tree caught his attention first: a modest evergreen, grateful for the garlands and the baubles that helped cover its meagre branches. The glass caught the shimmer of the sleepy fire in the hearth, as did the familiar, round spectacles on the nose of his future self. He was comfortably seated in the spacious old armchair the abbot used to sit in; he did not look that much older, not that he could see. And because he squinted so hard in search of difference, he failed to note, at first, what his future self was doing.

He'd seen the storybook, true; it was hard not to spot it, where it spread across the blanket covering his lap. He had not seen the bulges breathing under it, nor the thick, dark tufts of hair that disappeared against the black fabric of his cassock.

"Kids? What's…? Are you paying me so bad I have to do babysitting to make ends meet?"

Such a comfortable, familiar resort it is, humour, when one does not dare believe that frail, deceitful voice of hope that so often tells us lies.

"They're yours", murmured Sir Pheles softly. "These twin brothers are born and orphaned the day after Christmas Day, a few years from now. You adopt them."

They were… truly… his…?

"The one still struggling to stay awake is Yukio, the youngest: afraid of many things, but most of all of losing this makeshift family you've made for them. Such a wary little bird, always hides behind your cassock when strangers come to visit you at church; but under your supervision, he will grow into a boy genius. Youngest exorcist ever to pass his exams at True Cross Academy – and such a girl magnet", he added with a hearty chuckle. "Big brother Rin has no patience with books and stories: he's a rambunctious little hotspur, the kind of soul who wants to do good but is discouraged by his frequent failures. Like father, like sons, no~?"

The jibe did not reach its target, Sir Pheles knew, for one furtive glance told him Fujimoto had not heard a single word that followed "adopt". His smile stretched wider, then, as his tongue touched the sweet juices of success.

"Rin and… Yukio…"

How wonderful they tasted, those names – like sunshine! Like rain! Like dirty t-shirts and skinned knees, runny noses and neglected homework!

"And Shura, not to forget." At this, Fujimoto jolted out of his daze, every soldier nerve end at the ready for a brusque command. "No, not that kind – you've seen enough bloodshed already. You have a daughter by the name of Shura, older than these two boys by ten years; another orphan you didn't have the heart to abandon", smiled Sir Pheles as the tension seeped out of the exorcist, like a balloon deflating. "She lives at the Academy, a prodigy as both Knight and Tamer." His smile turned devilish, then; the charming kind of devil that is far more dangerous than the one true to its nature. "She's very beautiful – and you make sure early on that she can eviscerate any man who bothers her because of it."

Two sons, and a daughter.

A family.

He had not felt like this since he was an Esquire on his first mission; trembling, no more in control of his muscles than he was of his racing heartbeat. But this new feeling…! This soaring cry that spread its wings inside his chest, threatening to fly up his throat like a star shooting 'cross the galaxy…! It was too great, too overwhelming – it stuck, beating wings aching in his throat and blurring the room before his eyes.

"You raise three fine children, Shiro", Sir Pheles' voice murmured, fading into the silent snowfall. "They all grow strong, each in their own way. They are all very much like you, each in their own way."

Fujimoto gave no reply but watched, in breathless enchantment, how the little mouth gaped wide as Yukio yawned, and the thick-rimmed glasses bumped askew when eyelids surrendered and his head fell heavy against the black-clad chest.

* * *

There was one door on which Christmas did not bother knocking: it seeped in, in gentlemanly fashion, like one lone white beam of moonlight detached from the window. Cat-foot light it strode towards the table, quiet not to rouse the man whose back heaved slowly with the rhythm of sleep; arms crossed to make a pillow for his head, next to a forlorn mug of coffee and a stack of graded exams.

Gentle fingers plucked the glasses off, and coaxed the string of beads away that draped around his neck. The glasses folded soundlessly – the one thing he did take care of, in this hopelessly barren storage room he called his home – and were set aside to rest. The sleeper did not stir – too tired to note or care, with pale stubble on his chin and dark half-moons sagging beneath his eyes.

There was a chuckle, then, followed by a sigh that only superficially chided, and a silken handkerchief that dabbed away the moisture on his cheek; the smile, it left on the sleeper's lips.

"Merry Christmas, Shiro."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Shurastrong > means "carnage", the way her name is spelt. Without knowing it's the name of a person, any parent would be worried.**
> 
> ****Julbock** \- Yule goat, is what we had in Sweden before we had Santa Claus delivering the gifts. It's some weird amalgamation between the goat as a Norse fertility symbol and the goat as a symbol of the Devil: a "tamed" version of evil, with Medieval roots. Julbocken was an ambiguous bastard who could be evil and rambunctious, and play tricks on you; but he could also leave you gifts if he felt like it.**
> 
> **The title is a paraphrase of a very famous (er, in Sweden) **Christmas poem by Viktor Rydberg** , about the old folktale creature that lent its name to our present-day Scandinavian Santa Claus: tomten. He was originally more similar to a small folk kind of thing that helped you look after house and cattle. In this particular poem, tomten is doing his rounds and chores at the farm one winter night, checking on the house folk and all the animals, while pondering a very, very difficult question: where does Time come from, and where does it go? And how fast time flies for the humans he watches over… The sole creature on the farm that wakes and sees tomten, is the guard dog Karo. His only reaction is wagging his tail sleepily, because he knows tomten and knows he means no harm – even if humans would be quite startled to discover a supernatural creature living so close to them.**
> 
> **God Jul, allihopa. =)**


End file.
